Sam and Ernie - Chapter Two

 

C H E C K   M A T E

A series of short stories

By: Paul William Fassett

 

“I’m in pain,” I said.

“I imagine you are. A broken bone can be painful.” The shrink replied, with his massive forearms crossed under his chest.

“Well, do you think we could do something about it?”

“I can give you some Tylenol.”

“I was thinking something that might actually help with the pain.”

“It’s prescription strength.” He shrugged.

I stared at him, my mouth hanging open wide enough to catch flies. “You know, you could at least act like you care.”

“Do I care that you’re in pain? Yeah and I wish I could do something about it.”

“You could give me some pain medicine.”

“You’re an addict, Sam.”

“Oh, fucking whatever. I’m not an addict. I just don’t want to be in pain!”

“That’s what every addict says.”

“I’m not an addict!” I threw my pillow at the wall and pushed myself up on my bed so I could sit up.

“Then you’re suicidal.”

“I’m not suicidal, you fucking goon.”

“You don’t take that many pills unless you’ve built up a tolerance, or you’re tired of living. Which is it?”

He had me in a check. I sat there thinking about my next move, but before I could come up with a response he was ready with another question.

“Are you ready to join the world of the living?”

“Yes.” I responded without even having to think about it, really. I was looking forward to seeing people again, even if it was these people. He brought me my chair and tried to help me into it, so I swatted his hand out of the way.

“I’ve got it.” I kicked the chair, and it rolled away from the bed. “Can you at least lock the wheels?”

“Nah.” The shrink turned away and walked out of the room. “You’ve got it.”

It took about fifteen minutes to get my chair back to a place where I could slide into it. I wasn’t quite used to getting in and out of it yet. The group was in session when I finally got back in my chair. The first face I saw was her’s. The tall girl with the eye brow. We locked eyes for a moment, and I was the first to break the stare. Couldn’t wait to stop looking, to be honest, because… Well, listen. Boredom is the worst kind of torture.

I know that water boarding is probably way worse, but when you’ve got one of my brains, the worst thing you can be is bored because my brain won’t let me sit in silence. It’s gotta talk and talk and talk, and hum a song on repeat for hours, or wonder what my ex is doing right now, who she’s fucking? Is he better than I was? If my dick still worked, would she’d still love me? Then I saw her face. That off putting face frowning was haunting me all night and all day today, and when I saw her sitting in group it was like deja vu. Where once was a smile, now all that was left was a frown.

I pulled in next to a guy that… I can only describe as comatose. He just stared at people. Never said a word, barely blinks, just stares. He’s wasn’t a drooler or anything. I mean, I could swear the lights were on in there, but it was like he’d found the perfect grift. He got to watch the drama but didn’t have to participate. Sometimes I wish I was comatose. People come in to talk to him, from time to time. Probably family. A young girl, mostly. It’d be nice to just sit and listen to someone without the inevitable argument.

A skinny guy in a long sleeve turtleneck was talking as the shrink was sitting down. Everyone stopped their individual conversations like mom just walked in the room and caught us doing something naughty.

“Hello everyone.” The shrink pulled out his clipboard. “Ben, why don’t you start us off?”

The guy in the turtleneck shook his head. “I’d rather not.”

“Just start with how you’re feeling.”

He leaned in closer to the shrink and whispered something.

“Ben, it’s okay. Everyone is here for, more or less, the same reason. No one is judging you.”

Speak for yourself, I thought.

The guy just sat there looking down at his fingers which were worn down to scabbed up nubs. “Everyone is looking at me.” He whispered.

“Okay, Ben. How about you, Sam?”

I shook my head as well. “No thanks.”

“Why not?”

“I already said everything I needed to say.”

“Are you sure about that?”

“You know what?” I sat there thinking and there was a thought rising up. A thought that a part of me wanted to push back down, but I was never very good at that. “What kind of doctor are you?”

“I’m not a doctor. I’m a therapist.”

“So, that’s why you couldn’t give me medicine. You’re not a real doctor.”

He smiled. “That’s right, Sam.”

“So, what was it? Got to med school and just couldn’t hack it?”

“Actually, it’s a funny story,” He said, still smiling. “Want to hear it?”

“Not really,” I said.

He didn’t seem to hear me or didn’t care. “I was supposed to drain an infection out of someone’s genitals.”

The group elicited a simultaneous groan.

“That’s fuckin’ gross, doc.” Ernie said.

“Not a doctor, remember?” I said.

The shrink smiled again. “Anyway, when I smelled it, and saw that guys balls oozing puss, that was it. I decided right then and there that I wasn’t cut out to be a doctor.”

“Fascinating.” I said, turning away from the group.

“Okay, so now that I’ve broken the ice with something embarrassing, how about you tell us something embarrassing, Sam?”

Ernie raised his hand, and the shrink pretended to not see him.

“I think Ernie has something he wants to say,” I said, pointing to Ernie.

“I got one hell of a story,” Ernie said.

The shrink sighed. “Fine, go ahead.”

“Okay. So we’re sitting in my friends basement, and we’re probably ten years old right, and there’s this kid who lives down the road. Weird kid. Never said anything. He’d just stand at the bus stop and laugh at nothing. No idea who the hell invited him. We’re playing board games and this guy starts petting my friend’s dog. Then he says, hey everyone! Watch this! He turns the dog over on his belly, and hand to god,” Enrie put one hand on his chest and put his other hand, palm out to the group. “he starts jerking off the dog.”

I wasn’t paying much attention up until that point. No matter how boring the story is, when you hear the words: “Jerking off the dog.” You straighten up and pay heed.

“Okay, I’m gonna to stop you there.” The shrink said, but I leaned over and waved him away.

“Shut up, man. You can talk about balls oozing puss, but he can’t talk about a guy jerking off a dog?” I leaned my chin on my hands and waited.

The shrink looked around and saw that I was not the only one with an eager expression, waiting for the story to continue. Ernie’s eye brows raised, the unibrow did the same, even turtleneck guy stopped fiddling with his fingernails.

“Okay, fine. Continue.”

“Right, so the kid starts jerking off the dog, and I’m watching with amazement as this little red lipstick like thing emerges from a hole in front of the dogs dick, and it’s seriously like something out of a horror movie. Like a tentacle that sucks the dmt out of your pineal gland or some shit. Kid looks at us and says: ‘Watch this.’ And we’re waiting as if we’re about to see the most magical fuckin’ thing we’ve seen in our entire life. Then it happens. The dog cums.”

He’s laughing, the group is laughing, and I want to laugh but I don’t let myself. I just shake my head. “How’s that embarrassing? Sounds like the other kid is the one who should be embarrassed.”

“We all took turns.” The group was mortified. You could even hear gasps. “What, I was like ten. How old did I say I was? Anyway, I was young enough to not know what we we’re doing to the dog, but I’ll tell you this. That was a happy fuckin’ dog, right there.”

“Okay, now it’s your turn.” Ernie said, looking straight at me.

There was something I wanted to say, but it didn’t feel right. What if I said it, and it didn’t make anything better? What if it just made shit worse? Admitting you’ve done wrong is like giving someone a chance to hate you for it. Build resentment and throw shit in your face. “No thanks.”

“Hey,” Ernie pointed a meaty finger at me. “That’s not fair.”

“Life’s not fair,” I said.

“I’m sorry, but I have to agree with Ernie.” The shrink leaned on his clipboard. “You made him show you his, now you gotta show him yours.”

I leaned back in my chair and looked around the group. When I got to the unibrow, she looked away. I knew exactly what I wanted to say, but I knew I wasn’t going to say it.

“He’s not gonna do it.” Ernie crossed his arms. “I knew it. No balls. They cut your dick off in the hospital or something?”

“Give me a minute, you fucking neanderthal. Maybe I’m not as gifted at embarrassing myself as you are.”

Ernie rolled his eyes. I could feel everyone looking at me, and I felt something. A feeling I hadn’t felt in a long time since every day became roughly the same as the last day. I felt adrenaline. My hands shook and my body became warm. I cleared my throat and took one last look around the room and closed my eyes. “It was after the accident.” My voice was breaking, so I took a moment to swallow down the saliva growing in my throat. “I was supposed to be going to physical therapy, but I figured, what’s the use? You know? I’m trapped in this fucking chair no matter how many push ups I do, so I would take a bus downtown and sit at a coffee shop. I did this for weeks. One day I decide, enough is enough. I’m just going to go home and tell my girlfriend that I’m done with therapy and come clean. So I go home early, and as I open the door, I can hear a sound that every man knows. I shut the door slowly so as to not interrupt, and I come around the corner to the bedroom door, and there’s a big pair of balls, slapping against my girlfriends ass. My best friend is fucking my girlfriend doggy style in my bed.”

My eyes are still closed and I’m seeing the image in my head as if I was there again. Normally, at times like this, I’ll shout the image out of my head, but you can only shout: “Fuck off!” at the top of your lungs when you’re alone in your apartment. “I remember feeling helpless. I always imagined this scenario, I think we all do. Like, what would I do if I came home and found my girlfriend fucking another guy. I’d pull that guy off her and start beating the hell out of him. Maybe shoot him and her. I didn’t think about that. I just watched and thought to myself, what if she leaves me? I sat there watching until my friend came, and when they rolled onto their backs to catch their breath. That’s when they saw me sitting there. They didn’t say a word. I just wheeled away into the living room and waited. He left in a hurry. Not a word spoken. And when she came out of the room, she was furious. Yelling at me, telling me this was my fault. And you know what I did? I apologized.”

The room sat in silence, and the shrink just kept writing.

“How’s that? Good?”

“Yeah,” The shrink said. “I think we’re done for today. Sam and Ernie, can you stick around?”

“What’s up, Doc?” Ernie said, like some cartoon bunny.

“I have an idea. Ernie, your room mate just got released, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Why don’t you do me a favor and bunk with Sam for a little while.”

“Whoa,” I said. “What? I don’t think--”

“It’ll be good for you. Trust me.”

“I’m not staying with him.”

“I don’t think you have much of a choice.” The shrink said, standing up.

I yanked on his pant leg. “You can’t make me room with him. He’s a maniac. He already broke my finger.”

The shrink got down on one knee and placed my hands in my lap. He leaned in and whispered in my ear.

“Then you better watch your fucking mouth, or he might break something else.” He smiled and walked away.

Check mate.

Sam and Ernie - Chapter One

M O N D A Y   I S   J U S T   A N O T H E R   D A Y

A series of short stories

By: Paul William Fassett

“People are stupid. Most of them, that is. For example, a lot of people can’t tell the difference between entertainment and fact. When one gets all mixed up with another, the line between them gets blurred, and the part that’s supposed to be nuanced becomes...” Ernie gestured with his hands, and his arms flapped up and down like a bird. “inflated. That’s why you got guys out here, on the street, talkin’ about rich guys stealin’ from poor guys, and politicians are out there fucking kids. Meanwhile, there’s a whole world out there that aint like that, and they can’t see it. They all think the world is falling apart. A lot of them think the world was better when they were young.” The circle was quietly waiting as Ernie took the edge of his finger nail and dug something out of his ear. He must have got something because he flung it somewhere on the carpet. “That’s it.” The shrink tilted his head ever so slightly. “I’m done now.”

The shrink put his papers on his lap. “Why are people stupid?”

“You’d have to ask them.” Ernie chewed on the same finger that did the digging. I gagged mentally.

“No, I mean why do you think they’re stupid?”

“I just fuckin’ told you, doc. They watch too much TV!”

“Have you ever thought about how they got to be stupid?”

“Am I...” Ernie paused and looked around the circle for help, but found very few eyes were even looking at him let alone offering advice. “Am I speakin’ a different fuckin’ language, here? I’ve said it like, three times now. Try to keep up, Doc.”

“Keep up, Doc!” An exaggerated laugh from a prehistoric looking woman sitting next to Ernie. She was all teeth, no gums. An eye brow bisected her face separating her long forehead from her large shin. Long, bony legs peaked out from under a sundress.

“Alright,” The shrink gave a nod and crossed one leg over the other. “Take it this way.” The shrink tilted his head back. We sat for an uncomfortably long time in a silence broken only by the errant cough and a loud tick. “I don’t believe that we’re born stupid.”

“Yeah!” Ernie pointed at him, nodding his head in agreement. “Ignorance is learned.”

“Exactly. So, who teaches them?”

“It’s the goddamn parents. When I was a kid, you had five or six different moms on your block kicking your ass up the street every time you fucked up. Now, get this, my grandson kicked my son-in-law’s ass, and had the balls to call the police on his dad! Can you believe that shit? My mother would’ve put my ass in an oven if I did some shit like that.”

“You ever pick up anything from your parents, Ernie?”

“I see where you’re going with this. Yeah, I got a little bit of an anger problem.” His face turned up into a sad smirk. “Probably got that from my dad.”

“So, we can’t really blame them for being stupid, can we?”

“Yeah you can! No one has the right to be ignorant. That’s what my dad always said.”

“Is that why you broke Sam’s finger?”

“First off,” Ernie said. “I didn’t mean to break his finger. Second, he told me that the Phillies sucked. We won the pennant seven times!” Ernie was up out of his chair, coming at me again like he was going to break my other pinkie.

“I didn’t ask for this.” I said, turning my wheel chair around.

“Wait, Sam. Just wait a moment.” The shrink pointed to Ernie’s seat, but he stood there, defiant. His face was flushed and sweating. “Ernie, what the hell? We’ve talked about this. You can’t go around hurting people that don’t agree with you.”

“Seven Pennants!”

“So fucking what? You’re like the child that none of the other kids wanna play with. Picking on a guy in a wheelchair. Real tough guy shit. Sit the hell down!”

The cave-woman elicited a pointed and short laugh which drew angry eyes from Ernie.

I never noticed it until then, but the doctor was about the size of an orderly. His shoulders were the size of footballs, and he didn’t dress like any doctor I had ever seen. A t-shirt, black, with some white words written on it.

Monday is just another day.

And then he said something that I… Well, I don’t know how to explain it. It just sort of hung around in my head the rest of the day.

He said: “Do you like being a slave, Ernie?”

Ernie sucked some air between his teeth. His jaw was clenching and grinding. Surprisingly, he sat down without another word, and I turned my chair around. The shrink turned to me, uncrossed his legs and wrote something on his legal pad.

“How do you feel, Sam?”

My eyes got wide, and I turned to observe the room to see if I was the only person surprised. “Me?” I pointed at myself, a little dumbfounded.

“Your name is Sam, right? Are there any other Sam’s in here?” The Shrink looked around the room.

“I feel like my finger’s broke!”

“How does that make you feel?”

“Like some retard broke my finger!” I could see I was getting under Ernie’s skin. “I can’t even shuffle a deck of cards, which is about the only thing to do in here. Why is there no TV?”

“Rot’s your brain,” The Shrink said.

“I don’t want to be here. You people made me come here, and now I have a broken finger on top of everything else. So if you think I’m in the mood to...” I scrunched up my face. “Talk about my feelings then you’re wrong. I don’t belong here. I’m just visiting. You people belong here.” I pointed at Ernie. “You need to live here.” I think I hurt the cave-woman’s feelings. She wasn’t smiling anymore and she shifted uncomfortably in her seat.

“Okay,” The shrink said.

“Okay, what? Like you think it’s okay to be attacked by someone when all you want is to be left alone?”

“Calm down.” The Shrink motioned to someone behind me, and before I could finish I was being wheeled away from the group and taken to my room, where the orderly left me sitting at an angle pointing far enough away from my bed that I would have to use the hand with the broken finger to steer me towards it.

Well played…

I spent the rest of the day in my room, staring up at the wall, thinking about how I hurt that woman’s feelings. I couldn’t get her face out of my head. Not because she looked like a Frida Kahlo painting, but because… I don’t know. It was the first time I had seen her not smiling, and it was because of something I said.

Hello Father

 

The church of Ulcanus stressed the importance of confession. Their priests like to say that secrets are weapons the wicked can use against the otherwise righteous. Now, I’m not sure if I endorse the church but I can vouch for one thing. Secrets are fantastic weapons.

We walked into the church sometime around two in the afternoon, and the place was pretty much empty. It’s not like it was a deli or something. A church is probably the last place a person wants to be on their day off. Nobody wakes up at seven in the morning on a Saturday and says, yeah, I want to sit on a hard bench for two hours in a non-air-conditioned room with a hundred other sweaty people. You go because you believe you have no choice.

Murals of ancient battles were painted between every ceiling beam, and statues of the seven stances of virtue marked every third pew on either side of a long and wide red carpet while the seventh statue, by far the largest, loomed high above the pulpit. All of the statues were of men posed in a stage of sadness. The one behind the pulpit depicted a man cupping his face in the palm of his hands.

There was a conversation coming from the confessional, so I did my best to ignore what was being said. We sat in a pew nearby and waited, and in a few minutes the curtain to the confessional opened. A middle-aged elf in a tailored grey suit power-walked from the booth to the front doors with his head down.

Incense assaulted my senses and made my eyes water after I drew back the curtain and entered the confessional. The light was swallowed up behind me by the curtain and only a shaft of light illuminated the wall. It carved out the shape of a man. His face looked droopy, like the shadow of a slowly melting man. Through the window, I could make out a black veil which covered his face. A black nylon cap covered his cleanly shaven head. He reminded me of a novelty condom I won at the boardwalk last year. It was plastic figurine for your key chain. There was a pickle man in the condom with little thin arms and fat cartoon hands. That was a pretty good description of the priest, actually. He had all these brown moles on his cheeks which looked like plant bulbs about to bud under the nylon. The veil was pulled back revealing a rummy, ruddy face that protruded and bulged through an opening in front making his face look like the top half of a muffin.

“Hello father.” I closed the curtain behind me and sat on a tiny bench. As my eyes adjusted to the dark, the priest’s face became clear. He was old, like someone’s grandfather. His nose was a fat, blood vessel flecked bulb of flesh dangling from a collapsed nose bridge. “This is my first time… Doing this.”

“What do you seek to unburden yourself with?” The priest replied.

He said it like he was just repeating what the home office told him to say to every new customer. It was hurried and matter of fact. I expected this moment to be much more intimate but instead it felt like I was going to be buying something soon. I expected disdain. A part of me really wanted to be hated.

“I’ve been thinking about someone from high school lately? She was someone I kinda… Well, I wasn’t very nice to. Every now and then the memory will just pop into my head, and it’s so vivid that it’s like I’m living through it again. All I can do is shout the memory away. I’ve got a lot of debt on my soul, and I’m not totally sure it should be forgiven.”

“Ulcanus doesn’t forgive, but he will unburden you. Take sin into himself and make it his own.”

“Does he? Can he? No matter what?”

“Yes.”

“But how do I forgive myself?” I watched the priest carefully.

“Is forgiveness what you need, or is it something you want? What difference does forgiveness make if the sin is no longer yours?” The priest said.

“I guess that’s why that guy that just came out before me look so relieved. He just got done dumping all his problems in your lap. That makes you a sort of saint, don’t you think?” I watched for a change in his expression, but I got nothing. He just sat there, arms crossed, staring off away from me into the darkness.

“Son, do you have something to confess?” The priest seemed to be getting anxious already, and I hadn’t even started to confess.

“Sorry father. I’m just a little nervous is all.” I sat there thinking about what I was doing, why I was doing it, all that. I couldn’t think of a good reason to stop so I just kept going. And you know what they say about secrets. They aren’t secret if everybody knows. “So… Okay. I was about thirteen. I used to go to one of those kinds of schools that used to bus people in from all over. Real diverse crowd, you know? Which means you get into a lot of fights, form cliques, do you know what I mean?”

“Yes, go on.”

“Well, I was one of those kids that listened to rock music. Had long hair, plaid button downs, all that shit… Sorry, stuff.”

I watched the priest sit silently in the dimly lit cubicle beside me, but he seemed oddly un-swayed. He seemed like he as hard as wood. A soldier of god braving stories of depravity through a ten-inch window. I doubted my story would even elicit a response, but I wanted him to look at me like I was the most disgusting human he had ever met.

It would’ve lent a great sense of irony to the whole charade.

“I only had about three friends in that school.” I continued. “They were two guys like me that no one else wanted to hang out with. There was this one girl. Her name was Sarah. I thought I had it bad, but Sarah didn’t have any friends. She had this gimpy little walk where she would bob up and down on one side, all hunched over, looking at her feet. One of my friends used to follow her around school imitating her walk. I laughed. I mean, I laugh even to this day, but I always feel bad after. It was nice at the time to be the one dishing it out for once instead of being the one taking it all the time.”

I sat on that thought for a moment and really turned it over in my head as the priest listened. I had never said any of this out loud before. The thoughts had lived inside a corner of my head for so long that they were gathering dust. I just happened upon the memory on my way to the church as I was searching for something worthwhile to confess to. Memory is like that. The moment you find something hidden you haven’t thought about in a while, and you dust off the pictures and thumb your way through them, they tend to stick with you for a while until you put them back where you found them.

“And you wish to confess to this?” The priest said, breaking the silence.

“Yes and no. Just bear with me. We had this talent show near the end of the year. I had done the one last year and really embarrassed myself. I didn’t know what to do so I made like I was removing my thumb,” I reenacted the illusion for him through the window, but he never looked over. “Anyway,” I said, deflated. “It was a disaster. The teachers basically made people clap for me. It was fucking brutal… Sorry.”

The priest sighed but didn’t respond.

“Sarah goes up on stage and whispered something into the microphone that no one could understand and hobbled over to the piano. She was so shy…”

I took a breath and thought about the blurry Sarah from my memory. There was a feeling I hadn’t felt in so long. It felt like someone had a rope tied around my lungs and was tightening it whenever I tried to speak. I remembered her being cuter than she probably was which seemed to make the memory even harder to relive.

“So, there she was behind this piano, and she started playing. I looked over and my friends were giggling, and a part of me wanted to join in. But I got this sinking feeling. I looked over to my friend Daly, and he was whispering something to a friend next to him. I could see he was planning something. I always remember moments like those in slow motion because I was thinking at that moment that I should have said something. Like, I should have at least tried to talk him out of whatever he was about to do, but I couldn’t. I just sat there…

“Then Adam, this other kid popped up out of his seat and yelled out. Hnnnnnnnggggg! Like a retard, you know? Loud enough for Sarah to stop playing. She just sat there on that bench in front of the piano… Frozen. The whole crowd was silent and looking at us and within maybe twenty seconds half of them were laughing. All two, maybe three hundred of them. That’s when I realized everyone was looking at us. Meanwhile, I was looking at Sarah, and she was looking back at me. Dead at me.” I could picture her face in that moment as if it were happening again.

“I can’t take my goddamn eyes off her, father. As much as I want to, I can’t do it. I can see from where I’m standing she’s about to cry. I can tell. Then Adam slaps me in the chest and looks at me all cockeyed as if I’m the asshole for not laughing. So… I laughed.”

I stopped when I remembered her eyes. Those trembling wide blue eyes staring down at me. When she ran off the stage, I felt like such an asshole. She didn’t deserve what she got from us. She was just on the wrong end of the pecking order. I was in that confessional for a reason, and I was sure Benny, my partner, was getting tired of me drawing this all out.

“How do you do it, father? How do you forgive yourself?”

“Well,” The priest said after a short pause. “I’m not as experienced as you—”

“But you’ve done things, right?”

“We’ve all done something we regret.”

“So how do you forgive yourself?” I let my voice drop down lower for emphasis, and I watched as the priest shifted on the bench.

“I confess.”

His voice was sounding raspy and ragged. It was a sound I knew well. Everyone starts out that way as they try to figure out if they’re in danger.

“And that works?”

“I wouldn’t be a priest if I didn’t believe it did. Trust me. You’ll feel better now that you’ve said it out loud.”

A slight breeze blew the curtain open momentarily, and the daylight in the church receded behind the sound of neglected, metal hinges squealing. The church doors slammed shut, and that seemed to startle the priest who was clearly not expecting the sound. There was a silent moment where neither of us spoke.

I came closer to the window frame and stared into the priest’s eyes.

“Do you have anything you want to confess to me?” I said.

I could see the fear coating the surface of his eye. It was wet and trembling.

“What is this?” The priest’s voice was tremulous. His mouth hung open, shaking, and his jowls swayed slightly.

“This is confession.” I stared on.

“I don’t know what—”

“Yeah you do.” I said.

The priest leaped to his feet and swung open the curtain only to find Benny, who was the size and shape of a wall, standing between him and the exit. I opened the curtain in my cubicle and revealed myself to the priest. My appearance takes people by surprise. Long, curly brown hair, three-piece suit, and a well edged, short cropped beard. My mother used to tell me I had delicate features but those are all gone now. Years of fighting have taken a toll on my nose and eyebrows. The priest stood there staring at me with his face shaking like he had come down with a case of delirium tremors.

“Take a seat.” I pointed to the rows of benches just outside the confession booths.

Benny stepped backward exactly one step and held out a ham sized palm to show the priest where to sit. With some hesitation, the priest minced his way to the pew and his long, black, silky robe swished with every step.

The priest sat down with his back to me and peered around his shoulder from the corner of his eye. “I don’t have any money,”

“Oh, you got plenty of money, father. We’re not here for that.”

“What do you want then?” His voice took on a higher pitch as the anxiety began to wear away at his composure.

“You’ve got the look of a man who is confronted with a choice,” I said. “A choice like, do I just sit here and see what these guys want, or do I try to run? Or are you thinking about fighting?”

“Listen, just take whatever you want. Ulcanus will forgive you.”

“See that?” I nodded to Benny who was standing beside the priest. Benny looked down at him with a subtle smirk creeping into the corners of his mouth. I sat down behind the priest. “He’s trying to bribe us already.”

“Then…” The priest stammered. “Tell me what you want.”

“I want a confession.”

“What am I confessing to?”

“You mean you can’t think of one little thing to confess to? Nothing?”

“We all live in sin—"

I interrupted him. “Come on now. How about this? Tell me about the worst thing you’ve ever done. Look at me when I talk to you.”

The priest turned around slowly but never looked me in the eyes.

“I’m going to be honest with you,” I said. “I don’t want to hurt you. Nod your head if you understand me.”

The priest nodded.

“But I will if you make me. So, most important rule is, don’t lie to me. Got it?”

The priest nodded again.

“What’s the most fucked up thing you’ve ever done?”

Our eyes locked and as they did, I felt my eyes twitch, and my skin became warm. The priest looked at Benny as he stepped closer, and his face screwed up as he tried to stifle a sob.

“I…” The priest tried to catch his breath. “I’ve done things…”

“What kind of things, father?”

The priest looked down at the ground with his arm draped over the back of the bench. A tear fell down his face and exploded into a tiny wet dot on the floor.

“To children.”

“What kind of things, father?”

“Please, don’t make me say it.”

“It’s not real until you say it out loud, father. Go on.”

For every moment the priest bought with his silence, my patience thinned. In these situations, it’s all I can do to keep from beating a confession out of people.

“I touched them.”

I smiled. “Where did you touch them, father? Like, on the hand or something? Don’t sanitize the truth. Let it set you free!”

The priest sucked in air in short, stammering bursts.

“Their private parts.”

“Their private parts? You mean dicks? Vaginas? What? I need specifics.”

“Both.”

“Both!” I laughed and looked at Benny who was unamused. “He’s a playboy, this guy.” I leaned in with my elbows on my knees and my chin in the palm of my hands. “Did you like it?”

The priest leaned away as the sobs came and soon he was a blubbering mess. “I…”

“Aye aye. Yeah, I think you did. Think you still do, too.” I took a moment to take him in. Just moments ago the priest was sitting stoic in his dark little box judging all the sinners and now... Well, when confronted with his sins, he fell apart. Just like everyone does. It was kind of disappointing. “You’re doing good.” I patted the priest’s shoulder.

The priest breathed in, composing himself. Stuffing his sadness away.

“Just one more question, and we’re done. Okay?”

The priest nodded slowly, never taking his eyes off me as he leaned back.

“Did you ever make them touch you?”

The priest stared into my eyes and began to sob. He tore himself away from my gaze and faced the front of the church, slowly bending over to place his head between his knees.

I looked to Benny and nodded. “I guess that’s the answer.”

I pulled a garrote from my pocket with a silver metal handle attached to each end and stood over the priest. He was reciting a prayer to himself when the wire went around his wrists and neck and constricted. I yanked the priest and pushed with my foot on the back of his pew. He rocked back violently and screamed.

The wire drew blood from his wrists, and I would have noticed if I hadn’t closed my eyes. In cases like this I create pressure in my skull like an artificial yawn, and the world goes fades out into what I can only describe as the sound of wind rushing in from a car window.

“Benny!” I opened my eyes and saw what was happening. “Deal with his fucking hands, dummy!”

Benny bent over and tried in vain to grab the blood slicked hand that yanked back and forth, as the priest struggled, trying to free himself. Whatever Benny did worked because I could feel the wires tighten as the priest’s voice soon squeaked from existence. His tongue hung from his mouth like a turtle leaving its shell and darted in and out as he tried to lap up air into his throat. It’s never the choking that gets you. It’s the lack of blood to your brain that kills you. The sound of his body hitting the floor was the last sound that anyone would ever hear the priest make.

Benny and I left through the back exit of the church and exploded out into the sunlight. We didn’t speak until we were on the highway heading back to Fishtown.

Benny looked at me and then back to the road ahead of him. He weaved in between cars eliciting long, angry beeps. He kept looking at me, and I could sense he wanted to ask me something but was afraid to.

“What?” I asked.

“Nothing,” Benny replied.

“Bullshit. You keep looking at me.”

“Nothing, Jim.” A long moment went by, and I could feel that he was queuing up a question but as to when he was going to fucking ask it, that was anybody’s guess. “I was just wondering.”

“About what?”

“About that girl you were talking to the pedo about.”

“Sarah? You were listening?”

“I was right outside the fucking curtain. What did you expect me to do? Cover my ears?”

I sighed. “What do you want to know?”

“What happened?”

“She ran off stage, crying.”

Benny laughed. “That’s fucked.”

“Yeah.” I looked out the passenger side window as little drops of rain dripped down and swallowed up other drops becoming fat and falling away from view. “I just remembered why I was thinking about her.” I leaned back in my seat and adjusted my suit jacket.

“Why is that?”

“She died yesterday. Saw it on my codex.”

“You’re friends with her on codex?”

“Ain’t nobody friends with her anymore. She probably didn’t even remember me. She just accepted anyone that sent her a request, I imagine.”

“How’d she die?”

“Some muscular thing. Shit just ate away at her over time like rust.” I smiled. I have a habit of smiling when I’m uncomfortable.

“What are you smiling about?” Benny asked.

“The priest was right.”

“About what?”

“I do feel better.”

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